London Mayor Ken Livingstone said here on Friday that London must take the 2012 Olympic Games as an opportunity and invest more to develop as a truly global city.
London must remain open and forge ahead with investment despite facing a temporary economic slowdown, the mayor said.
Speaking at his "Global Capital" conference in central London attended by many of the capital's business leaders, Livingstone noted that London will officially take over from Beijing as the host city for the Olympic Games this August. "This will give an unprecedented opportunity to promote London and its businesses internationally and could not come at a better time."
He said that London is placed to weather a global slowdown and emerge with a strengthened economy but it must continue to carry out the massive multi-billion-pound investment in the capital's infrastructure.
The mayor said that in the past London has compared itself as aleading global financial center with Paris and Frankfurt, today London considers itself equal to or even ahead of New York but must now also look to the cities and financial centers in the emerging markets of China and India as benchmarks for measuring future success or risk losing economic momentum.
The Games is providing unparalleled opportunities to regenerate the east of London with thousands of new jobs and new homes expected to be delivered over the coming decade, Livingstone said.
Livingstone said that the city should aim to be in four years the world's most international city, a city that has moved ahead of all others because it has embraced globalization.
The mayor said that London should be on the cutting edge of international technology, finance and business, and that London should be a city in which its citizens have the greatest range of choice and life styles available to them of any places on the planet.
He said that London should take seriously its position as a global citizen by pursuing among the most advance policies on climate change in the world.
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